Park Theatre Is Closing at Meadville
MEADVILLE, March 25, 1958 â€" The Park Theatre, Meadville’s largest motion picture theater, will ring down the curtain this Sunday after the more than 35 years it has entertained audiences with movies. The First National Bank of Meadville has taken a 50-year lease and will move into that building, at 254 Chestnut St., as soon as the theater is converted into a bank.
The bank, in turn, has been purchased by the Mack Realty Co. for the G. C. Murphy Co., which will raze the present bank building at Chestnut and Market streets for expansion of the Murphy department store.
The Park Theatre was built in 1922, when movies were the rage, despite the fact that they had no sound. The theater has a seating capacity of 1,500.
Another motion picture theater in Meadville closed its doors several years ago. Now, only one, the Academy Theater, which seats 800 persons, will remain.
The Associated Contractors of Conneaut Lake will convert the theater into a bank. The present bank building will be torn down to make way for an enlarged G. C. Murphy store. The department store, which is now L-shaped, has entrances on both Chestnut and Market streets. When the bank building is razed, it will enable the Murphy Co. to extend its store to the corner. The Murphy Co. has been in Meadville since 1912. A real estate firm, two dentists and Meadville radio station WMGW, all of which have offices in the bank building, will have to find other quarters, but they will not have to leave before next fall. Announcement of the bank’s plans was made today by Edwin H. Seep, president of the bank. The theater is owned by the Park Theatre Corp., of which firm Dr. Harry C. Winslow is president.